Pirates on Saudi oil tanker face ultimatum from Islamists

A Taliban-style Islamist militia in Somalia has warned pirates who have hijacked a Saudi oil tanker they may launch an attack unless the ship and her 25 crew members are released.

By Colin Freeman in Boosaaso

9:43PM GMT 23 Nov 2008

The Shebab (youth) militia group has despatched carloads of heavily-armed fighters to the lawless pirate town of Harardhere, from where they are planning a raid to free the hostages aboard the Sirius Star, which is anchored offshore.

The pirate gangs on board have given warning to the Islamists that they are ready to fight. Any confrontation could turn into a bloodbath in which the hostages - who include two Britons - could be killed.

But the Islamists are thought to believe that mounting a high-profile operation against the pirates will help portray them as champions of law and order in Somalia.

Were they to free the tanker's crew, the West would be in the embarrassing position of being indebted to a movement it officially views as a terrorist organisation.

"If the pirates want peace, they had better release the tanker," said Sheikh Ahmed, a spokesman for the Shebab group in the coastal region of Harardhere.

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The Shebab fighters used to be the armed wing of the Islamic Courts Union, an Islamist organisation that brought peace to Mogadishu two years ago before being deposed by the weak but internationally-backed transitional federal government.

During their time in power the courts virtually eradicated piracy along Somalia's 2,500 mile coastline, declaring it un-Islamic and threatening offenders with execution.

A report by the Merchant International Group, a risk consultancy, said that attacks on vessels dropped from around 40 a year to virtually none when the courts briefly ruled between June 2006 and January 2007.

While the Shebab's hardline brand of Sharia law includes imposing brutal punishments like stonings and whippings, many Somalis say it is preferable to the anarchy that has otherwise prevailed since the collapse of the government in the early 1990s.

"They are in a good position to capitalise on the law and order problem by attacking the pirates," said Dr Abdirahman Bangah, acting fisheries minister for the Puntland region of northern Somalia, from where many of the pirate gangs operate.

The US and Britain backed the moves by the Ethiopian-backed federal government to depose the Islamists because of fears that they could be harbouring foreign al-Qaeda fighters in their midst.

Since being depossed in January 2007, the Shebab have regained control of large swathes of southern Somalia, and are fighting an insurgent war agains the federal government.

Some question, though, whether the operation against the pirates will be be borne of completely altruistic motives, or whether their arrival in Harardhere is simply in the hope of extorting a share of any ransom proceeds from the tanker hijacking.

A member of the pirate group holding the Sirius Star said his own men were not afraid of the Shebab, which says they have committed an additional offence by hijacking a ship from a fellow Muslim nation.

"We are the Shebab of the sea and we can't be scared by the Shebab of the land," Mohamed Said said. "If anybody attempts to attack, that would be suicide."

"Every Somali has great respect for the holy kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We have nothing against them but unfortunately what happened was just business for us and I hope the Saudis will understand."